I got some questions for my Syriac friends. I've been a big student of oriental and early liturgies. I wanted to fact check a few ideas and assumptions.
1) would you describe your "kiss of peace". I assumed that it was like the Coptic, or the one of the Assyrian Church of the East, where it is a kind of hand clasp, kind of gesture. As opposed to a shoulder kiss (Armenian), or a cheek kiss, (EO).
2) Do you have a water blessing where the priest tosses and/or dabs water on the congregants, as he blesses them in the names of various saints? In the Coptic church the priest does that with the water that is used to clean the sacred vessles, after he cleans the eucharistic utensils at the end of the service.
My understanding is that these things come from a Syriac influence, or are present in one of the early liturgies like St. Basil that was used by some of the early Oriental Churches.
and may add even a third one.
3) do make use of a curtain? as either a part of the iconostatis, or in the area where the iconostatis would be? As do the Armenians, and some Coptic churches have a curtain that is part of the iconostasis.
I may have additional questions as I think of them...
